any kind of card. Frankie, Fliss, Lyndz and I had just made ordinary birthday cards. Rosie had made a special ‘Happy Tenth Birthday Sleepover Club’ card, complete with a badge.
Coo-ell!
“Wow, Rosie. That’s brilliant!” I said.
“You’re bound to win! Yours is the best card by miles,” said Frankie.
“Thanks very much!” said Fliss.
Frankie ignored her.
“Why don’t we just agree that the tenth birthday sleepover will be at Rosie’s place?”
Lyndz and I nodded. But Fliss wasn’t having that.
“You said that we would ask the Tester to judge the cards,” she moaned. “So that’s what we should do. She might like something different.”
“Like yours you mean?” I asked.
“Maybe,” said Fliss.
When we saw who was testing us for our Artist’s Badge, we realised why Fliss had been so keen to wait for her opinion. It was Sally Davies, Snowy Owl’s best friend. And as I’m sure you remember, Snowy Owl is none other than Fliss’s auntie, Jill!
We’d had to do other things for the badge, besides our card. We’d had to design a pattern in three colours and paint or draw a picture. As well as the card, I’d made a bookmark. (I’d painted fluorescent squiggles on it with some of Molly’s special paint. She wasn’t very happy about that. One-nil!)
Sally looked at all our things separately, then all the Brownies who were taking the badge had to sit at a table together and draw a vase of flowers. I went for the big and colourful look, the others copied what they saw. But that’s art isn’t it? Everybody looks at things differently.
Sally seemed pleased with everybody’s work. She complimented me on my ‘bold’ style, which sent Frankie into hysterics. When Sally had signed all our forms to say that we had gained the Artist’s Badge, Frankie explained about our cards and about the competition we were holding.
“Would you just tell us which card is the best?” she asked.
We’d laid them all out on the table, so it wasn’t obvious who had made each one. Although of course she had seen them before and could probably remember.
“I’m not sure that picking out one from the rest is a good idea girls,” said Snowy Owl. “You know that everybody’s work is as valuable as everybody else’s.”
We all rolled our eyes to the ceiling.
“No really Auntie Jill, we want Sally to choose,” explained Fliss. “We can’t decide where to hold our next sleepover, and whoever made the best card gets to hold it at her house. So you see, we really need her help.”
Frankie and I nearly cracked up when she said ‘Auntie Jill’ in that sweet way of hers. She was obviously trying to influence Sally’s decision.
“Alright then,” said Sally, picking up all the cards and looking at them very carefully. “I think you’ve all done a fantastic job. But I have to say that this one really stands out because it’s so different.”
She picked up Rosie’s card.
“Putting the badge on there was a very clever idea.”
We all patted Rosie on the back. All except Fliss, who scowled at Snowy Owl.
So we finally knew that our tenth birthday sleepover was going to be held at Rosie’s house, and that was pretty cool. Not only does she have a humungous house with about a million rooms, but her mum is really great, really young and trendy and a real laugh. The best bit though, is that we can actually write on Rosie’s bedroom walls!
I really thought that once we knew where the birthday sleepover was going to be held all our problems were over. How wrong can you be! They were only just beginning!
You know the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, where the guy has two completely different personalities? Well that was Rosie as soon as she knew that the birthday sleepover was going to be at her place. She was like some power-crazed monster. No one had ever seen her like that before. And I’m certainly not in a hurry to see her like that again.
We all met up at the shops in Cuddington on the Saturday after Brownies. They’re easy for us all to get to, apart from Lyndz who lives a little bit further out than the rest of us. And our parents are quite happy for us to go there by ourselves. You know what parents are like! Always worrying about something. But at least they know we’re safe there. Apart from the threat of Fliss driving us all crazy by telling us about some great earrings she’s just seen, and the cool nail varnish she ‘just has to have’. P-lease!
We always meet on the same bench outside the newsagents. Rosie was the last to arrive. When she did appear, she was carrying a mountain of paper.
“What on earth have you got there?” asked Lyndz.
“Plans for the sleepover. Is next Saturday alright?” asked Rosie, flopping down next to us.
“Now, let me just consult my diary,” I said, pretending to flick through some imaginary pages. “Let me see. Next Saturday you say? Hmm. I think I can squeeze you in!”
“Sounds good to me!” said Lyndz.
“Fine by me,” agreed Frankie.
“So we’ve got a week to sort the presents out!” said Fliss. The rest of us groaned.
From the pile she was carrying, Rosie pulled out four invitations. Pinned to each one was a copy of the badge she’d made for Brownies.
“Cool!” we all gasped.
“Adam did these on the computer for me. I thought it would be nice if we could all wear one for the sleepover,” she seemed very pleased with herself. “All you’ve got to do is cut them out and make them into a badge. Is that OK?”
“Yep, I think even we can manage that!” I laughed, pulling a face at Frankie.
“Now,” said Rosie, reading from one of her larger sheets of paper. “What I thought was: arrive at 5pm, put things in my room until 5.15pm, games outside until 6.15pm, make-up and hair, (possibly a fashion show if we can fit it in) until 7pm, food until 7.45pm, Twister until 8.15pm, then disco until mum sends us to bed, which she says will be about 10pm – if we’re lucky! Washing and undressing until 10.30pm, giving out presents until 11pm, then midnight feast. Everybody OK with that?”
We were all sitting round with our jaws scraping the pavement. Was this girl for real? This was more like a military exercise than a sleepover. It was supposed to be fun for goodness sake!
“Erm, Rosie, I think you’ve forgotten one thing,” I said very seriously.
“No, I can’t have. I was up all night planning this. What have I forgotten?” she said, furiously reading through her timetable.
“What about toilet breaks?” I giggled. “I mean what if we need to go to the loo in the middle of the outdoor games? Should you plan for us to all to go together just to be on the safe side? Then we won’t mess up your timetable.”
“Like at school you mean?” Rosie looked very thoughtful. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll see where I can fit it in.” The rest of us cracked up. Even Fliss knew that I was joking and Fliss has a sense of humour the size of a pea.
“And